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Taking It To The Limit
When it comes to sport, I have always found that while my friends preferred anything with a ball, I myself tend to think that it gets in the way somehow. If you’re dribbling a soccer ball or a football, you have to worry about keeping it under control, while if you’re running with a rugby ball or playing American football, the chances are that you’ll get a big hit sooner or later which will make you all the more reluctant to get hold of the ball again. Running, and having nothing more to think about but running, is the thing for me. This, I think, is why I stopped entering the short-distance races at school sports days. I was good and could win, occasionally, but what I wanted to do was keep running, and the sprint events seemed a bit of a tease in that respect. Of course, the school didn’t really have the chance to run its own marathon. I can’t see many parents being too pleased by the idea that, as part of the curriculum, their kids would have to run 26 miles unbroken every so often. I see their point, too, and when I took up marathon running it was on my own initiative, when I was old enough to realistically handle it, and with the nod from my folks. I’m strangely serene when I run, as though everything else kind of takes a back seat and my body and mind simply work together to take me from point A to point B. Nothing fancy, no psychobabble, just me and the road. Oh, and the other competitors. They always have to spoil things! I actually have a tendency to feel somehow removed from the actual rough and tumble, which sounds good until you realize that there is almost a painkilling effect to this, and if I do myself an injury I will usually not know about it until about fifteen minutes after the race, when it will suddenly make itself known to me and bring a few of its mates along for the show. I have learnt to notice the other signs my body sends me – the pain signal may not be there, but the balance will be off and I’ll find it hard to get the best out of myself. I learnt this the hard way. Not through an actual injury, but through a dehydration incident which spoiled my first marathon of 2005. I thought I was doing great, until my limbs seemed to just stop giving me what I was asking from them. I wanted to carry on running, but I was badly off balance and only an instinctive outstretched arm prevented me from falling into the side of the road and really hurting myself. One of the race marshals, trained to recognise the signs, immediately diagnosed dehydration. My race was run, and I had to put it down to experience. These days, I always take my own small hydration pack when I’m competing or training. The act of taking on water has become just another thing my body does by itself. Copyright Zarro Webmaster@liquidpacks.com
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